The Division of Veterans Affairs is trying to get the rollout of a brand new multi-billion-dollar Digital Well being Report again on monitor, after pausing the mission for 3 years.
The VA has been in a “reset” interval since April 2023, placing all new deployments of the brand new Oracle-Cerner EHR on maintain till the division handled persistent outages and efficiency points at websites already utilizing the brand new system.
VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence instructed Federal Information Community in an interview that websites already utilizing the brand new EHR from Oracle-Cerner are “catching up” to pre-deployment productiveness ranges, and that some websites have already met that concentrate on.
“In the new deployment, we’re spending a lot of time thinking about how quickly return-to-normal should actually happen,” Lawrence stated. “In this new rollout, it will be much faster to return to pre-deployment levels of productivity.”
Lawrence stated the EHR is assembly uptime targets outlined in its contract with the seller, and that 10 of the previous 12 months have been “incident free.”
“We tell everybody the system is reliable,” he stated.
VA is planning for its new EHR from Oracle-Cerner to go dwell at 13 websites in 2026 — beginning with 4 websites in Michigan in April 2026. Later this yr, the EHR is scheduled to go dwell at medical amenities in Ohio, Indiana and Alaska.
Not like earlier deployments, the VA is planning to deal with upcoming go-lives to happen in waves.
“It’s not only an acceleration. It’s a restart, quite frankly,” Lawrence stated.
“We think this market approach — doing all the sites in Michigan, all the sites in Ohio — really makes sense, because we don’t have people in the same geographic area using different electronic health records,” he added.
The VA can be staffing up at websites getting ready for the brand new EHR.
“We’ll have some hiring to augment what’s going on — that’s taking place and is almost done — as well as support during the deployment. But that will eventually go away,” Lawrence stated.
Oracle can be sending groups to imminent go-live websites.
“Folks get to be at the elbow, while our practitioners learn and do that. They’ll be there for a while, but not forever,” he stated.
The VA signed the EHR contract with Cerner in 2018. Cerner was acquired by Oracle in June 2022.
‘You have every right to be skeptical’
In a listening to final month, VA Secretary Doug Collins instructed members of the Senate VA Committee that the EHR rollout underneath the Biden administration was an “unmitigated disaster.”
“The previous administration just frankly gave up, threw their hands up in the air and said, ‘We quit,’ after billions of dollars being spent,” Collins stated.
Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), chairman of the Home VA Committee’s expertise modernization subcommittee, stated in a listening to final December that the mission’s lifecycle price has grown to about $37 billion.
“This timeline is locked in, and the countdown is on. But the question remains: When the switch is flipped in April, will the system deliver, and will it do what we need it to do? Are we going to run into snags like we have in the past? For millions of veterans relying on VA hospitals and staff supporting them, this is not something that is theoretical. It’s real. It’s happening and we have to do it right,” Barrett stated.
Collins instructed the Senate VA Committee that one of many key points with earlier go-lives was that the Veterans Well being Administration “had way too much non-standardization in their plan.”
“We’re going to standardize what we do. VHA is no longer going to be the sticking block here. We’re going to get to 90% of what the standard product is that we’re being offered. The 10% where we need to customize, that would be the only part we did,” he stated.
VA medical facilities in Washington State that had been the primary to undertake the brand new system “were allowed to basically design their own systems, while Cerner, at that time, was just enabling it and letting it happen,” Collins stated.
VA’s inspector common workplace discovered that the brand new EHR had greater than 800 main efficiency incidents since its launch. Greater than half of these incidents occurred after the 2023 pause on new deployments.
Collins instructed lawmakers that lots of the OIG’s suggestions had been “based on a screwed-up, backwards system that is not in place anymore.”
“Anything that’s referenced to the OIG report, in all fairness, is like looking at a 1945 novel,” he stated.
Collins instructed lawmakers that the VA has spent greater than 5 years finding out issues with the brand new EHR, and that the division has totally addressed them.
“For the first time, there’s an honest plan looking forward. Now, if everybody wants to look backwards on this, I understand. You have every right to be skeptical, but all I can tell you right now is it’s unlike anything in the past,” he stated.
‘There shouldn’t be something that we are able to’t handle’
VA’s new EHR is at present working at six websites. Full deployment would convey the EHR to 170 websites. The division at present expects to finish the deployment as quickly as 2031.
A GAO report in March 2025 discovered that solely 13% of VA employees utilizing the brand new Oracle-Cerner EHR believed the modernized system made VA as environment friendly as attainable, and 58% of customers believed the brand new system elevated affected person security dangers.
Lawrence stated the VA is addressing these workforce considerations by stepping up coaching for clinicians. Clinicians are skilled on a “sandbox” model of the well being file system.
“Once we can get them into the learning labs, where they see how it’s all going to work, they are very, very positive. The emergency doctors are over the moon, because they see how much better it is than what we have,” he stated. “But for the folks who have concerns, we’ve really worked within their community of practice to make sure the folks who have sort of kicked the tires on the system talk to everybody and explain, ‘No, this is actually quite safe.’”
VA medical amenities already utilizing the system have been beset with issues for years.
Senate Democrats are additionally cautious about VA’s EHR rollout plans. In a letter final December, Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) stated they’ve “serious concerns” that EHR issues flagged by GAO and the VA inspector common’s workplace haven’t been totally addressed
Lawrence stated the VA management staff spends hours every month with the VA inspector common’s workplace speaking in regards to the VA EHR rollout, and that the division is conscious of watchdog workplace’s considerations with the mission.
“We’re very confident that we’re addressing all the issues that will enable us to go live on time,” he stated.
The VA has paused the EHR modernization program twice thus far. The division introduced the primary pause in 2021, after a big range of issues occurred on the first go-live web site in Spokane, Washington. The second pause was introduced in April 2023, when the VA launched the brand new EHR at 4 further websites.
The brand new EHR, nonetheless, nonetheless went dwell at a medical web site in Chicago that the VA runs collectively with the Navy. The Protection Division in 2024 accomplished its migration to the identical Oracle-Cerner EHR that the VA has struggled to implement. The complete purpose of the EHR modernization mission was for DoD and VA to have utterly interoperable well being data for service members transitioning out of active-duty navy service.
Lawrence stated all checks on go-live actions are on schedule, and that he hasn’t seen any warning websites that will necessitate the VA pausing the EHR rollout for a 3rd time.
“I’d have to see something very different than what I’m seeing now,” he stated. “I am confident from the information I’m seeing, we’re going live and there shouldn’t be anything that we can’t address. And whatever we address will probably be relatively small and insignificant.”
If you want to contact this reporter about current modifications within the federal authorities, please e-mail jheckman@federalnewsnetwork.com, or attain out on Sign at jheckman.29
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